Android Nougat Comes to Asus Flip C302, Beta Channel

You may have been reading the numerous reports lately that Android 7.1.1 (Nougat) has reached the Samsung Chromebook Plus, on the Canary Channel. You may have read other similar reports that various other devices are receiving the update on the Dev channel.

But you may not be aware that some owners of the Asus Flip C302 are reporting having received a “critical update” in the beta channel which included the Android 7.1.1 update. That’s kind of a big deal. That’s one step away from the Stable channel, which is the channel all Chromebooks ship in.

I myself am one of those users. I received two updates today, and the second one presented me with this:

And then, this:

If I’m being honest, I have to admit that I don’t really use Android apps on my Chromebook much. Or ever, really. Google seemed pretty proud about the fact that users will be able to use Microsoft Office for Android, and Photoshop for Android on Chromebooks, but I wasn’t impressed. I’m a Google Apps user, and am quite content with the web app Pixlr for my graphic design needs.

But I’m a tech blogger so I have to mess with stuff. And you should too.

If you’re “lucky” enough to have received the Android 7.1.1 update, you’ll probably want to enable “developer options” and flip a particular switch to allow resizing of Android apps.

Enabling developer options on a Chromebook version of Android is the same as doing it on a phone or tablet:

Go to Settings, scroll down and click on GooglePlayStore

Click on ManageAndroidPreferences

Scroll down and click on AboutDevice

Click on BuildNumber a bunch of times until it says Developer Options enabled

Once you’ve done that, you’ll have an option in your Android Settings you didn’t have before, called Developer Options.

Click on Developer Options, and scroll down to the bottom, and the second to last switch will be called Allow free window resizing by dragging the border. Enable this switch, and you will now be able to resize Android apps on your Chromebook!

That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far in playing around with Android N. If you received the update, please share your experiences!